What Is Dyscalculia? Extract from The Maths and Dyscalculia Assessment
This is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Maths and Dyscalculia Assessment by Robert Jennings and Jane Emerson.
Background: How common are dyscalculia and maths learning difficulties?
Research has shown that numeric and arithmetic abilities are equally as important for life success as literacy skills and that difficulties with maths can have severe effects on individuals’ wellbeing as well as a nation’s economy. Current estimates have shown that approximately 20 per cent of the population in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have difficulties with mathematics, imposing great practical and occupational restrictions. Around 5–7 per cent of the population have dyscalculia (Vogel and De Smedt 2021)
Yet compared with other special educational learning difficulties, dyscalculia receives limited recognition within the wider education support system and lacks the same level of funding and research interest.
In the UK, Pete Jarrett for the British Dyslexia Association (2022) outlines that between 2010 and 2020, the Welcome Trust funded dyslexia with £3 million and dyscalculia with only £1 million; between 2005 and 2019, UK Research and Innovation funded dyslexia with £107 million and dyscalculia with only £23 million.
In Dyscalculia: From Science to Education (2019), cognitive neuropsychologist Professor Brian Butterworth writes that, since 2000, the National Institute of Health in the United States has spent $107.2 million in funding for dyslexia research but only $2.3 million on dyscalculia. This is despite the prevalence of the two conditions being similar.
In a report by the Every Child a Chance Trust/KPMG (Gross, Hudson and Price 2009), the annual economic damage caused by poor numeracy skills in the UK (the lack of skilled labour, public social spending, private insolvency, etc.) was estimated at £2.4 billion, higher than the economic damage caused by dyslexia.
In the final report for the Foresight Mental Capital and Wellbeing Project (2008), developmental dyscalculia (defined in medical terms as a congenital neurological 17 Introduction to the Maths and Dyscalculia Assessment (MDA) developmental disorder) was estimated to reduce lifetime earnings by £114,000 and reduce the probability of achieving an acceptable pass grade in a public exam by 7–20 percentage points.
In her latest research, Kinga Morsanyi (Senior Lecturer in Mathematical Cognition at Loughborough University) states that: ‘A child with Dyscalculia is a hundred times less likely to be diagnosed and to receive educational support than a dyslexic child’ (2018).
This discrepancy in research, funding and support shows the importance of the MDA, as this apparent lack of awareness can have consequences for both the individual and the wider community.
Maths is a key skill that you need just to go to the corner shop to buy bread, to split the bill with your friend in a restaurant or to manage your own budgets and finances as an adult. Passing maths GCSE is a requirement for going further in education and failure to do so can act as a barrier to career enhancement. It is incredibly important that students with innate maths difficulties get the right support early on in their lives so they can navigate mathematical content in their later lives with confidence and access the same opportunities as others.
How do we define dyscalculia?
The SpLD Assessment Standards Committee (SASC) is a representative organization for professionally qualified diagnostic assessors of specific learning difficulties (SpLD). SASC members work to agreed standards of practice, established collaboratively by the organization.
The current definition of dyscalculia emphasizes that these conditions are often ‘lifelong’ and can affect people of different ages, educational abilities and socioeconomic groups.
Dyscalculia is a specific and persistent difficulty in understanding numbers which can lead to a diverse range of difficulties with mathematics. Mathematics difficulties are best thought of as a continuum, not a distinct category, and they have many causal factors. Dyscalculia falls at one end of the spectrum and will be distinguishable from other mathematics issues due to the severity of difficulties with number sense, including subitizing, symbolic and non-symbolic magnitude comparison, and ordering. It can occur singly but can also co-occur with other specific learning difficulties, mathematics anxiety and medical conditions. It will present across all age ranges, levels of education, abilities and experience.
The additional dyscalculic profile can include problems with poor phonological memory, low processing speed, digit reversal, left–right confusion and weak language abilities.
Phonological memory is the ability to immediately process and recall sounds stored in your short-term memory, and is therefore a foundational element in reading.
Poor phonological memory thus also affects a student’s ability to answer questions involving maths vocabulary and terminology; left–right confusion will impact on planning and executing calculations, on shape, space topics and graphs. The Scottish Government published a working definition of dyscalculia in 2022 (https:// education.gov.scot/resources/dyscalculia):
Dyscalculia is a neurodevelopmental learning difference which can co-occur with a range of other specific learning needs. Dyscalculia can be described as a specific difficulty in understanding number and number processes which persists despite the provision of appropriate learning opportunities. It is distinguishable from other challenges associated with numeracy and mathematics due to the:
- Persistent inability to understand and or retrieve numerical facts from memory
- Use of underdeveloped procedures and processes
- Severity of difficulties with number sense.
It is important to highlight the word ‘persistent’ in these definitions as this recognizes that although basic mathematical skills are key in primary maths, the difficulties that students experience at that stage in their education are still present later and may even be more of a learning difficulty as they move up through secondary school and into adulthood. The persistence of these difficulties also means that the problem will not go away without significant and appropriate teaching intervention. Unidentified, it could result in ‘maths anxiety’, low self-esteem, high levels of stress, atypical behaviour and low achievement. It will also have some impact on opportunities in adult life.
Looking forward: A new dyscalculia definition
In 2024, the SASC instigated a working group, chaired by Janet Goring, which is developing a new definition and guidance for dyscalculia and maths difficulties based on up-to-date research and more detailed experience of working with individuals with dyscalculia and maths difficulties.
Number sense is still perceived as the defining feature of dyscalculia, but this is considered too limited as it often presents differently at different ages.
Low levels of arithmetic fluency are a characteristic of dyscalculia, yet there is no agreed definition of this concept. The key factors for arithmetic fluency are accuracy, efficiency and appropriate flexibility.
The forthcoming definition is likely to be mapped to the new dyslexia definition as closely as possible. There will be an emphasis on specific and persistent difficulty affecting most areas of maths. The prevalent cognitive factor is numerical magnitude processing. It will be a life-long condition, but different manifestations and trajectories at different ages and stages will present. Domain-general variables are seen as crucial as well as domain-specific variables such as number sense. Finally, co-occurrence will be the norm rather than the exception. Maths anxiety will also be acknowledged as an associated problem, within any new definition.
The Maths and Dyscalculia Assessment is available now at JKP.com or wherever you buy books.